Technical Abstract:
The National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) is a collaborative program between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the United States Department of Agriculture to prospectively monitor changes in antimicrobial susceptibilities of zoonotic pathogens. Bacteria isolated from humans, animal diagnostic specimens, healthy farm animals, and from raw product collected from federally inspected slaughter and processing plants are evaluated for their susceptibility to a panel of antimicrobial agents. Non-typhoid Salmonella was selected as the sentinel organism. The animal arm of NARMS resides at the USDA-ARS laboratory in Athens, GA while the human arm resides at the CDC in Atlanta, GA and the retail arm resides at the FDA-OR in Laurel, MD. Here we present data on Salmonella susceptibility collected by the animal arm of NARMS. Analysis of the data has begun to reveal trends in resistance over the ten years of sample collection by NARMS. Correlations between serotype, animal source and antimicrobial susceptibility have been identified and are being further analyzed by molecular methods. These methods include genotyping (e.g. PFGE analysis by PulseVet and comparative genomics) and identification of antimicrobial resistance mechanisms (e.g. microarray analysis and PCR detection). This information will be used to understand the antimicrobial resistance detected and to devise intervention strategies to prevent its further development and spread.